Identification of Traffic Accident Patterns via Cluster Analysis and Test Scenario Development for Autonomous Vehicles

Increased safety is one of the main motivations for traffic research and planning. The arduous task has two components: (i) improving the existing traffic policies based on a good understanding of risk factors related to trends in traffic accidents, and (ii) underpinning the emerging technologies that will advance the safety of vehicles. For the latter route, the introduction of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) is a promising option as CAVs can potentially reduce the number of accidents. However, to reap their benefits, they need to be introduced in a safe manner and tested for their ability to safely deal with risky scenarios. Unfortunately, the identification of such test scenarios remains a key challenge for the industry. This study contributes to increased safety by (i) analyzing UK’s STATS19 accident data to identify patterns in past traffic accidents, and (ii) utilizing this information to systematically generate scenarios for CAV testing. For task (i), the patterns in the accidents were identified in terms of static and time-dependent internal and external factors. For this purpose, the study employed a clustering algorithm, COOLCAT, which is particularly suitable for dealing with high-dimensional categorical data. Six different clusters emerged naturally as a result of the algorithm. To interpret the clusters, we applied a frequency analysis to each cluster. The frequency tests showed that in each cluster, certain distinct real-world situations were represented more significantly compared to the non-clustered reference case, which are the markers of each cluster. The second task (ii) complemented the first task by synthesizing the relationships between attributes. This was done by association rule mining using the market basket analysis approach. The method enabled us to develop, drawing from the characteristics of the clusters, non-trivial test scenarios that can be used in the testing of CAVs, especially in virtual testing.